**3. Pesticides production in India**

India is the fourth largest producer of agrochemicals followed by the USA, Japan, and China. Worldwise utilization of agrochemical regarding pest management India has the ninth rank (**Figure 2**). In India, Maharashtra ranks first in the consumption of pesticides regarding crop protection followed by Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal having 13,243, 11,557, and 3630 MT consumption of pesticide, respectively [10]. In India, maximum utilization of pesticides takes place regarding the management of pest of cotton (45%) followed by rice (22%) and vegetable (9%) as globally comparing the highest in fruit and vegetable (26%) followed by cereals (18%) (**Figure 3**).

#### **3.1 Benefits of pesticides**

Farmers have made significant growth in food production by using pesticides over the last 60 years. They did this primarily to prevent or reduce agricultural

**Figure 2.** *Pesticide consumption in different countries of the world (Source: Indian Agrochemical Industry Report, 2016).*

### *Insecticides - Impact and Benefits of Its Use for Humanity*

losses caused by pest activity, which resulted in increased yield and greater availability of food at a reasonable price throughout the year. In most countries, agricultural productivity has increased dramatically as a result of the use of pesticides (**Figure 4**). For example, wheat yields in the United Kingdom [12] corn yields in the USA [13], and total yields in Russia and other countries were enhanced enormously [14–16]. It has long been assumed that diets rich in fresh fruits and vegetables far compensate the risks of eating crops with very low pesticide residues [17]. Better nutrition and less drudgery both improve the quality of life and the length of life [18]. Improved medical care and drug treatments, as well as hygiene, having all played a significant role in extending lives, but the importance of nutritious, safe, and affordable food as a health promoter that increases life expectancy should not be underestimated [19, 20]. Controlling a wide range of vectors of human and livestock disease, thereby reducing the number of infected people and deaths, as well as preventing the spreading of international disease, is one of the most obvious benefits of widespread pesticide use. The most effective way to combat vectors is to kill them. According to the World Health Organization, life will be unacceptably dangerous for a large proportion of humanity if chemical control methods are not available. Pesticides are essential in the destruction of many living things, which

**Figure 3.** *Crop wise consumption of pesticides.*

**Figure 4.** *Pesticides production in India (Source: [11]).*

#### *Review on the Impact of Insecticides Utilization in Crop Ecosystem: Their Prosperity and Threats DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100385*

has a negative effect on human activities, infrastructure, and everyday activities. Insecticides have been used to kill unwanted organisms in many particular sectors of human action, such as the prevention of accelerated corrosion of metal structures, the maintenance of turf on sports pitches, cricket grounds, and golf courses, and assisting in the facilitation of a hugely popular pastime that provides fresh air and sunshine for thousands of people in domestic and decorative gardening.

Pesticides can provide a variety of benefits, but many of these advantages go unobserved by the general public. The most important and simplest to calculate advantages are also the financial advantages for farmers derived from the protection of farm outcome and quality as well as the reduction of other expensive inputs such as labor and fuel. Estimates of global pest failures for eight crops in some regions revealed that pest-induced losses exceeded 50% of attainable agricultural production [21]. Pests destroyed 15% of crops, disease pathogens and weeds each accounted for 13%, and post-harvest pest infestations accounted for 10%. Agricultural production would decline and food costs would rise steeply if pesticides were not used. Farmers would be less competitive in the international markets for major commodities if they produced less and charged more. Preventing or decreasing agriculture sector losses to pests through the use of pesticides improves yields and thus ensures consistent supplies of agricultural produce at reasonably priced prices for consumers. It also enhances the quality of the food in terms of esthetic appeal, which is important to customers.

Insecticides are also commonly used in a number of other situations, many of which the general public is unaware of. In the same manner that pests in agriculture and public health cause adverse effects such as losses, contamination, and damage, those organisms have a negative effect on social activities, infrastructure, and everyday materials when left unchecked. Pesticides play a significant, but often unseen, role in mitigating this negative effect. Thus, the advantages of pesticides can accumulate to a range of different recipients, not just farmers or buyers, but also to society as a whole.

Other advantages include the preservation of esthetic quality, the protection of human health from disease-carrying organisms, the eradication of nuisance that causes diseases, and the preservation of other organisms, such as endangered species. Insecticides are often used in ways which we often take it for granted in our businesses and homes. For example, the controlled use of insecticides in processing, manufacturing, and packaging facilities protects raw commodities and packaged grocery products from insect contamination. Pesticides are often used in supermarkets to control rodents and insects drawn to food and food waste.

According to Davis et al. [22], nearly all families (97.8%) used pesticides at least once per year, and two-thirds used insecticides more than five times each year. The home was the most common location for family pesticide use, with 80% of families using pesticides at least once per year. This was followed by the use of herbicides to control yard weeds (57% of families) and insecticides to control fleas and ticks on pets (50% of families). Pesticides were also used by a significant number of families in their gardens or orchards (33%). It is obvious that proper pesticide use improves our quality of life, protects our property, and promotes a healthier environment. These nonmonetary advantages of pesticide use are difficult to quantify. Policymakers have long struggled with how to assign monetary values to things like esthetic value, the survival of certain endangered species, and peacefulness. In practice, such nonmarket advantages are rarely recognized as key by policymakers as positive effects that can be quantified in the marketplace, and thus, they are largely unnoticed. The innovation of a pesticide use profile is usually the first step in calculating the beneficial effects of each pesticide. The lack of an insecticide use database is a major barrier to determining accurate estimates of the impact of changes in insecticide availability (**Table 1**).


#### **Table 1.**

*The complexity of the effects, and primary and secondary benefits of pesticides.*

#### **3.2 Impacts of pesticides**

They are potentially harmful to humans, animals, other living organisms, and the environment if used incorrectly. It is estimated that about 5000–20,000 people died and about 500,000 to 1 million people get poisoned every year by pesticides [24, 25] at least half of the intoxicated and 75% of those who die due to pesticide are agricultural workers. The rest is being poisoned due to the eating of contaminated food. For control of aphid population on mustard crop, imidacloprid 17.8 SL and thiamethoxam 25 WP were recorded as the most effective. In the biopesticide point of view, *M. anisopoliae* 1.15 WP was recorded as more effective than *B. bassiana* 1.15 WP [26].

#### **3.3 Impact on human health**

Pesticides might enter the human body through the inward breath of dirty air, residue, and fume that contain pesticides; through oral openness by burning through sullied food and water; and through dermal openness by direct contact with pesticides [27]. Pesticides are showered onto food, particularly foods grown from the ground, and they emit into soils and groundwater, which can wind up in drinking water and pesticide splash can float and contaminate the air. Poisonousness of synthetic substances, length, and greatness of openness decides the level of spiteful effect on human well-being [28]. Pesticide float from rural fields, openness to pesticides during the application and deliberate or inadvertent harming for the most part, prompts the intense sickness in people [29, 30]. Studies build up a connection between pesticides openness and the frequencies of human persistent infections influencing anxious, regenerative, renal, cardiovascular, and respiratory frameworks [31]. The credits of pesticides remember upgraded financial potential for terms of expanded production of food and fiber and the board of vector-borne infections and afterward, their charges have brought about genuine well-being suggestions to man and climate. There is presently overpowering proof that a portion of these synthetic substances does

*Review on the Impact of Insecticides Utilization in Crop Ecosystem: Their Prosperity and Threats DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100385*

represent an expected danger to people and other living things and undesirable incidental effects to the climate [32]. Exact insights on the well-being impacts of pesticides are not accessible. Notwithstanding, it is assessed that all around the world, consistently somewhere in the range of 1 and 41 million individuals experience the ill effects of openness to pesticides assessed that at least 300,000 individuals kick the bucket from pesticide harming every year, with close to 100% of them from low and center pay nations. In 2008, the World Bank put the quantity of passing at 355,000. Notwithstanding, FAO (2005) suggesting to ongoing information from Sri Lanka demonstrated that 300,000 passing each year might happen in the Asia-Pacific locale alone because of pesticide harming. The study of disease transmission of pesticide openness worldwide is not completely perceived and more often than not under-analyzed as indicated by the Dish American Wellbeing Association, a global general wellbeing organization situated in Washington, D.C. "Pesticide harming cases are under-revealed by 50% to 80% area wide," detailed the PAHO in 2011, introducing to the Americas (**Table 2**).
